July 30, 2007

The Farm Animal Welfare Council, FAWC, defined animal welfare in terms of the five freedoms. They argue that the five freedoms define ideological states rather than prescriptive standards for welfare when considering an animal, or group of animals, in terms of their physical and mental state, health and well-being. FAWC suggest that the five freedoms should form a framework for determining animal welfare and how poor welfare and suffering should be prevented within the scope of livestock production. The five freedoms are:

1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst - ensuring access to fresh water and a diet that maintains full health and well-being;

2. Freedom from Discomfort - by providing an appropriate living environment including a rest area, suitable bedding, and shelter;

3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease – implementing management protocols that are based on prevention and in the event of a health issue, ensure rapid diagnosis and treatment;

Whilst a documented management system can be designed to assure animal welfare, to ensure adequate levels of animal welfare are achieved, and indeed surpassed, the individuals caring for and working with livestock must so diligently and have empathy for the animals that they are working with. This empathy with animals is often termed “stockmanship”. Effective stockmanship is about having an understanding of animals, and how they behave in situations of good welfare and health and also the signs of poor health and wellbeing and any deterioration in their living conditions. Stockmanship therefore requires key personal skills such as good observational skills and being able to, based on knowledge and experience, compare what you see, hear and smell to optimum conditions and if required take appropriate and timely action; exhibiting patience and thoughtfulness at all times when handling and working with livestock and modify their behaviour appropriately if the animals become fearful or distressed.

July 28, 2007

Sometimes you dig your own hole and promptly fall in it, on other occasions someone digs the hole for you and you merely oblige. So what do you do if you are in this situation?

Back to the hole! You need to recognise that the how you got in the hole is history! Whilst hindsight is a good thing, especially if you use the experience not to make the same mistake twice, once you are in the hole how you got there is largely immaterial, it’s how you manage to get out that’s important! So what do you need to do?(a) Recognise that you are in a hole;(b) Stop digging! Don’t make the hole any bigger than you have already;(c) Work out the dimensions of the hole and how big a problem you have; (d) Determine if you are on your own in the hole or if you have taken others with you;(e) If you are with other people agree a plan of action that utilises the best of everyone’s skills; and(f) If you are on your own logically plan each step of how you get out and limit potential damage.

All too often in business we are in denial, either pretending or not wanting to recognise that we have made a mistake or trying to cover it up. This eventually makes the initial problem worse. Individuals and organisations then compound the problem by develop strategy upon strategy to address the “non-issue”. We can only learn from our mistakes if we recognise that we are fallible as individuals and as organisations and have an open culture that supports admitting mistakes and learning from them.

July 27, 2007

Self-branding is a frequently used word, but how good are you at promoting yourself? What does your personal profile or cv say about you?

Increasingly, we have to “sell” ourselves to potential employers, clients, customers and work colleagues. We can quickly run into trouble if we over-promote ourselves and then cannot deliver and at the opposite end of the scale we can continually sell ourselves short. So what is the best way to describe what we can offer?

We often use a personal profile or curriculum vitae (cv) to describe our abilities and strengths. In the past curriculum vitae contained very precise information, personal details, schools attended, qualifications including grades and the examining board, previous job experience and referees who would vouch for our good character and work ethic. However, the tone and content seems to be changing over time. I read a number of cvs and the same layout even the same font seems to appear again and again, it is though the applicants have been formulated to fit the template rather than the cv designed to promote the person. There are often huge unexplained gaps, off travelling perhaps, or a job that the applicant doesn’t really want to talk about?

Within the personal profile you often find the series of bullet points on the benefits and character traits the applicant will bring to an organisation. The same words seem to circulate, everyone is committed, ambitious, energetic, strategist, always delivering and meeting targets, hardworking, conscientious. Certain character traits such as calm, focused, empathic, able negotiator, team builder, mentor, coach, enabler rarely appear. Why is this? Is this because the people developing their personal profiles do not believe these skills are worthy, or because they don’t believe their potential employers or clients consider them important? Will the personal blog eventually supersede the cv because with this medium the client or employers could gain a greater insight into the thoughts of the person?

So have another look at your personal profile, what does your self-branding actually say about you, what skills are you promoting and are they those that your “market” needs?

July 26, 2007

How often do you find that others in the team take over and you can’t seem to get your point of view across?

We have all been involved with team activities where one person likes to take control. If they are not the team leader this can very quickly affect the dynamics of the team and negativity can set in. What can you do to assert yourself and your views in this situation? Here are some ideas:

1)Prompt the team leader to reconfirm the scope of the teams activities especially if individuals are straying from the proposed plan;

2)Ask the team leader to clarify the aims and objectives of the team especially at a meeting if they are losing control. Remember to be calm and assertive rather than aggressive;

3)Give everyone else a chance to state their views and where possible lose some of their momentum;

4)As they talk write down the key words they say in two columns for those words you agree with and those you don’t;

5)Choose the right time to speak, this can vary but a good time is when most people have had their say and before the team leader starts to conclude the activity;

6)When you speak use the key words that you have written down when putting your point of view. Make eye contact with each individual in turn when you agree with what they have said and use “their” key word. This will make them more likely to concur with your comments;

7)Try to conclude as you speak so that you put forward an argument on why you agree with some points and not with others. This will validate your point of view and may sway those who when they first put their point of view across did not agree with you; and

8)Refer to the aims and objectives of the team or meeting and how what you are putting forward meets those aims and objectives;

If you can achieve all of these steps and still appear calm, confident and non-confrontational this will help you to carry the discussion. It will be your words and logic that will be ringing in the ears of the team members as they discuss and agree the actions to take.Avoid at all costs being drawn into open combat or territory that you are not familiar with and being drawn into negativity or being belittled by others.

Remember, you allow yourself to be belittled or ignored, if you don’t value your own opinion, how can you expect anyone else to?

July 24, 2007

How do CEOs and the organisations they run perform after the CEOs have won awards for "Best Managers" or "Best Performing CEOs"? This blog by SOX First reviewes some of the latest research which has some quite interesting and unexpected results. Check it out at:

July 23, 2007

A proactive business is one where the management team work well to identify specific circumstances or issues that could affect the business in a positive or a negative way and determine how they can be effectively managed. Indeed a proactive organisation is one that plans for the future and gains commercial advantage from such activities whether this is leading the market rather than merely following other competitors in their field, one that drives the current market and anticipates and leads change. A proactive organisation is also one that anticipates the skills and abilities it requires in its workforce and takes steps to ensure that those skills will be available when that business needs them.

However sometimes the steam can go out of a business, personnel change, strategies drift and the business starts to lose its edge, and instead of being proactive it becomes passive and starts to only react to situations.

Reactive businesses react to events when they are actually occurring and tend to try to manage only that particular issue without having the time or resource, and sometimes the actual inclination to do anything different. As a consequence reactive business often evolve an organisational hierarchy with complicated sub-structures and overly bureaucratic systems because they are always problem solving at, or after, the event and rather than doing the leading themselves in the marketplace are being led by the decisions and behaviour of their competitors.

So what kind of business is your business? Is it proactive or reactive or somewhere in the middle? Are some departments in your business proactive, whilst others are reactive and is this currently creating conflict within the organisation? Firstly, you need to recognise that this is an issue for you, secondly determine how deep-rooted the problem is and then thirdly how you are going to redress such concerns before they affect the bottom line and ultimately before it is too late for your organisation!